


Sacred Sacrifice

by Rasiaa



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29752902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasiaa/pseuds/Rasiaa
Summary: "Would you have done it?" Flynn asks. There's a strange note to his voice Mathias can't discern. "If you'd have to choose, would you have?"
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Sacred Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to clear out my pinned works on Word, so I'm adding endings to a whole bunch of stuff. I don't know which one will be next, but here's another that's been sitting there for months. Whether or not this was the ending I had in mind, this is the ending this story has received.

Mathias's earliest memory is of himself at four or five.

It hurts so badly that even decades later he still wakes up in tears over it.

It is one of the worst things about his life from _any_ aspect.

It is a sacrifice he warns the SI:7 hopefuls of; so many back down when they hear of it.

It is Pathonia's biggest regret.

...

_"I'm sorry, Mathias, I really am. Please--"_

_"NO! I won't! Let me go!"_

_"--just hold--"_

_"Grandmother! Let me go!"_

_"--hold still! It'll hurt less if you hold still, darling--"_

_A lie. The magically heated poker hit his hip and he screamed and screamed and screamed. Pathonia held him still while the mage held the weapon to his skin. He cried and screamed and when his voice broke he cried through the blood in his throat. He could feel something fracture; something vital to his soul, something precious and sacred._

_"Mathias, please. Please don't cry. You can't have any identifying marks. A soulmate mark is the most identifying addition to anyone's skin. Even tattoos are less of a threat. I'm sorry, Mathias. I'm so sorry."_

_He cried himself to sleep in her arms, and the warlock bound the wound once the mark was nothing but a scar._

_Out of everything Pathonia had ever done to him, it was this that hurt the most._

...

He was so young when he lost his soulmate. Growing up without one made it easier to cut ties with anyone and everyone. It was yet another sacrifice he made for Stormwind, for the crown, for the Alliance. He doesn't necessarily regret it, but watching others with their soulmates spurs feelings of resentment he does his best to push away.

It's hard to avoid a topic when every humanoid in Azeroth has a soulmate mark of some kind. He could be alone and ignore the painless scar, but surrounded by people with marks that burn in color or change with emotion or dance with the elements, it's harder to suppress that part of his life.

He is not the only one to make the sacrifice in the name of espionage, but he is one of the only ones who _didn't_ have the choice to do so.

At thirty-seven, he's not sure if he would've made the choice. He's never been sure.

He can vaguely recall what his mark had been--deep blues and greens with strong black lines in a pattern he can't remember. He wishes more than anything he could remember. He hadn't been able to read the name that was set along the edges of the mark, and his grandmother never told him.

There are a lot of things she never told him.

...

Flynn Fairwind is fun, he's exciting, he's loud, sometimes too much.

Mathias does his best to stay away.

But it's almost inevitable, perhaps. He tries and fails and ultimately ends up in Flynn's arms anyway.

Part of the thrill is the darkness; Flynn obviously gets off on risk. Mathias plays it up, then, that doing anything in the daylight hours is beyond him, beyond what he can give. Even the darkness is dangerous, he says, so Flynn takes what he can get.

So it's late when they meet, late when they kiss, late when they fuck. Flynn is gone from his quarters on the _Wind's Redemption_ before dawn, or Mathias leaves the _Middenwake_ as the stars begin to disappear; either way, what they have is a secret bound to the night.

Mathias has had too many questions, too many maybe-forevers that have led to disappointment. Edwin comes to mind, with his pale blue mark with _MS_ etched carefully into his wrist. _Marissa Shoemaker_ had been a slap in the face, and later baby Vanessa even more so. Jorach, too, but their soulmate marks were never a match, made obvious from the first time Mathias saw his. Jorach hadn't understood, just like Edwin, that Mathias never had a choice to hold onto it.

But Flynn--Flynn waits for him. Flynn is the first since Edwin to give a damn about whether or not he makes it home alive. Returning to Stormwind after his stay in the Zandalari prison is like a dream, one where Flynn is literally shoving the king to the side to reach him, and this is something out of a novel, surely? But no.

With the war over and the two of them safe in the Alliance capitol city, it's harder to explain away Mathias's desperate need to conceal his lack of soulmark in the dark. _It's not safe in a warzone_ doesn't work anymore and _it's too busy here_ is obviously a lie. There isn't district more forgotten than Old Town.

He can't really avoid the truth anymore.

So he avoids Flynn as subtly as he can instead. It's hard, avoiding someone he lives with, but he's hidden things from people in close quarters before. It works for a couple of weeks, until he's faking sleep and Flynn rolls over in their bed. Flynn presses his forehead between Mathias's shoulder blades with a sigh. "I wish you'd talk to me," Flynn whispers, pained and worried.

It takes all he has not to chase the man as he pulls away and lays on the other side of the bed.

The gap between them may as well be an ocean.

...

The thing is, Mathias has seen the outline of Flynn's soulmark before. It's hard to miss, a splash of color on Flynn's pale skin, so different from the rest of his tattoos. It becomes clear to Mathias why his grandmother said even tattoos were less of a risk than a soulmate mark--the difference between them is so obvious he'd be a fool to mistake the mark as anything else. It's imbued into the skin in a way that tattoos are not--tattoos are added later in life, but soulmate marks are there from birth. However, since it's always dark, he can't make out the cursive writing, nor can he distinguish between the colors. Flynn isn't shy about it, doesn't try to hide it at all. The few times Mathias sees it in the light of dawn, he pointedly doesn't look.

He wonders if Flynn has searched for his mark. Surely he must have--Mathias is free of tattoos and mostly of scars as well, the remnants of Felsoul Hold aside. There is no part of him that Flynn hasn't seen. A soulmark would be eye-catching, a beacon for those who cared to look and those who didn't.

So why hasn't he said something?

...

Flynn is waiting for him when he gets home two days later.

He's sitting at the kitchen table, and the thing that makes Mathias concerned is the mostly-full bottle of alcohol on the table before him. The glass is still topped off with the whiskey as well.

Mathias drops his keys on the table. "Is everything okay?" he asks, wary. Flynn shrugs, which can't be good.

"I don't know, Mathias, why don't you tell me?" Flynn asks. He crosses his arms across his chest and leans back. "Seems like things haven't been okay for a while."

 _Here we go_ , Mathias thinks. He was a fool for thinking Flynn would be the one to stay, soulmates be dammed. He slides into the seat across from Flynn and sighs. "It's fine--" he starts.

"No," Flynn says. He's quiet but clear, and the word silences Mathias more effectively than a shout ever could have. "No, you don't--please don't. Don't keep doing this. If you want me gone, just say so. I'll be on my ship by dawn if that's what you want--"

"No!" Mathias says, entirely too loud, and Flynn shuts his mouth with a snap. Mathias runs his hands over his face and through his hair, frustrated. He should've expected this. "No," he says again, quietly. "I don't want you to leave."

"Then what the fuck, Mathias?" Flynn demands, and now he's really angry. "What's going on? You keep shutting me out, running away--I can't keep playing this game! This is ridiculous. I came to Stormwind for you--much longer and I'll leave regardless of what you want."

It's a threat and a promise, one Mathias never wanted to hear. He doesn't know what to say. Flynn's right, of course; this isn't fair to either of them, but to Flynn especially.

He searches for words but Flynn takes the silence as something else. "Well? Is it--" he stops. Flynn looks small and uncertain, anger evaporating in light of whatever's crossed his mind, so Mathias abandons his endeavor of trying to explain.

"Is it what?"

"Don't think I hadn't noticed, Mathias. You did a really good job, I'll give you that--but I've searched and searched... is it the soulmate thing? I know you've seen mine, but I've never seen yours--"

"I don't have one," Mathias interrupts softly. All these years, he still rarely admits it. Flynn draws away from him, even more uncertain than before. It hurts Mathias to see; he wanted so desperately to avoid this, but like every time before it's inevitable, apparently. "I used to," he goes on. "My grandmother burned it off when I was a child."

"She _what_?"

"It was on my hip. You've probably seen the scar. I can't remember what it looked like."

It's Flynn's turn to be lost for words, now. He stares at Mathias like he has three heads. This is usually the reaction he gets when he tells people of Pathonia's actions, so he stays quiet and stares back evenly.

"She burned it off," Flynn eventually repeats. "She just--how? I didn't think that could be done."

"With a poker. There's a spell warlocks can perform. Chaos magic. All of my agents undergo the procedure. I'm the only one that didn't choose it."

"Why would someone choose that?"

Mathias shrugs. "Sometimes people are widowed. Other times, their soulmate is someone they can't stand for some reason, or it's not a perfect match. I don't ask. I warn them of the sacrifice before they join. Most people walk away, as I'm sure you can imagine. It's one of SI:7's more heavily guarded secrets, you understand. People think we're awful enough."

"Would you have done it?" Flynn asks. There's a strange note to his voice Mathias can't discern. "If you'd have to choose, would you have?"

"I don't know," Mathias answers with a sigh. "Sometimes, I think I would've. Then the nights get too long, or the job too hard, and I think the opposite. I could wish for it back, but that won't change anything. I didn't get a choice, so I try not to dwell on it."

Flynn doesn't ask anything else. He looks... sad, for some reason. Then again, Flynn has always been strangely empathetic to Mathias, so maybe that's it. After a minute, the look clears, and Flynn smiles at him. The smile rings false, painted on and not at all genuine. "Let's go out to dinner." 

Mathias won't dwell on this, either.

"Okay."

...

Flynn watches him after that.

Mathias can feel the weight of his gaze all the time, and it's distracting. The only time he's free of it is at work. After their fight, though, he can't really bear being there too long. He doesn't want Flynn to leave. So he goes home anyway, and they sit together in careful silence, tension thick enough to cut.

He doesn't know what Flynn is thinking, if he's still angry or if this is something else.

"Can you show me the scar?"

Mathias looks up from the paperwork he brought home from his office. More useless reports on nothing, no word of Windrunner anywhere. So he sets them aside willingly enough, trepidation of this conversation aside. He stands, fiddling with straps on his uniform until they come undone just enough to reveal the mottled skin on the front of his hip.

Flynn kneels before him and reaches out, clearly intending to touch, before something stops him. Mathias stares at him inquisitively. "Does... does it hurt?" Flynn asks eventually, meeting his eyes.

"No," he answers. "You can touch."

Mathias jumps when Flynn's fingers brush over the scar, something electric shocking his heart. Flynn doesn't acknowledge the movement, eyes on the scar. He runs his fingers over it again.

"What spell did you say she used?" Flynn's voice is off, eyebrows furrowed.

"I don't know. It hurt like hell," Mathias says. "Chaos magic, like I said. That's all I know."

"Well, it's coming undone," Flynn says, touching more of the scar.

Mathias looks away from Flynn's face to find that he's right. Color is filling in the crevices between folds of burned skin, greens and blues and blacks. He stares, captivated.

The image is unclear. With a burn over it, seeing the original shape is impossible. The burn has been there for thirty-two years; it's not going away. Part of Mathias is disappointed, wanting so badly to connect with the soulmate he thought he lost forever, but a larger part is alarmed by its appearance. This is the part that has bought into his grandmother's words, her teachings. He grits his teeth and forces it down as the ramifications of this moment hit.

Flynn brought the mark back. With a single touch, he undid a decades old spell.

Flynn's his soulmate.

Their eyes meet again and Mathias sinks to his knees to be on more level with Flynn, and for a long, endless moment, they don't speak. Then Flynn pulls him close, and they're kissing, right there on Mathias's kitchen floor.

He'd like to say there's some magic moment where everything falls into place, but the truth is that the kiss feels like all the other thousands they've shared, that Flynn's touch feels exactly the same. He enjoys it, it's not exactly a hardship to be in this position, but there's no shock that most soulmates describe when they touch. Mathias has to fight more disappointment. Seems like the spell still broke the bond after all.

When they separate, they're both trying to catch their breath. Flynn starts picking at the buttons on his shirt; Mathias doesn't ask what he's doing. Flynn's soulmark is on his ribcage, a mixture of blue and gold and red. There is no distinct image to the colors. _M. Shaw_ is on the edge of it, in tiny, tiny letters. Like they're trying to hide.

Which is probably the point, Mathias acknowledges, tracing the mark. He's a spy. He lives to hide.

"Are you going to let me in, now?" Flynn asks quietly.

Mathias looks up at him, finding that Flynn has been staring intently.

"I already have," he says. Flynn raises his eyebrows. "How many people do you think I've told about my grandmother's insanity?"

Flynn smiles and laughs. "True enough." Then he sobers. "I'm staying, you know. Good luck getting rid of me now."

"Do I look like I want to be rid of you?"

Mathias kisses him again just to prove his point.

**Author's Note:**

> There seems to be a trend here where I make Flynn chase after Mathias in some way--I don't know why, but as I was adding the end to this I noticed it. I've got a couple of other works in process that I'll try and edit this phenomenon out or at least make it more... necessary. I don't like the trope but it's writing itself...  
> Hm.


End file.
